Writer. Bisexual. Fan of cartoons and dogs.

Game On: #Wattys2016

I’m not generally one to enter writing contests. This is mostly because I rarely have anything polished enough to be worthy of submitting to one. Unless you count the copious amount of copywriting I do for work and the professional blogging I do to maintain appearances.

But who cares about that stuff, amirite?

(Just kidding. I do. But that’s not the point.)

Anyway.

Since I decided to publish “The Star and the Ocean” simultaneously both here and on Wattpad, I’ve been hearing rumblings. Excited posts had been flying in the forums for weeks.

Being fairly new to Wattpad in general, I had to do a big of digging to figure out what all the fuss was about. What I discovered was essentially the Oscars of Wattpad writing.

The Wattys is a massive site-wide writing contest that, in all honesty, couldn’t be easier to enter. Basically you just need to have a story that you either have written in 2016 or have at least updated three parts of during this calendar year.

Oh, and it has to be your original work. Duh.

If your story meets those requirements, the only thing you need to do to be eligible for consideration is add #Wattys2016 to your story’s tags and boom: done.

Now, obviously factors such as whether or not your story is good and polished play a part in your success, but ultimately it’s up to the judges (unless you’re gunning for People’s Choice, in which case it’s basically a popularity contest).

The 2016 Watty’s launched yesterday, June 20th (after a lengthy delay that sent the Wattpad community into a goddamn tailspin) and runs until the fall. There are so many categories and they literally accept just about everything (yes, even fanfiction). Winning in any category means being featured, and when you consider Wattpad’s monthly audience of 45 million, that’s a nice little bit of exposure.

Now, I’m not operating under delusions of grandeur here; yes, I’d like to think I’ve got a shot but it’s not going to be the end of the world if I don’t win. It’s actually just a lot of fun to be part of something this captivating and exciting within the community and it provides some good motivation to keep writing (and writing well).

I know that I post the same chapters here on this site (actually, I post the complete and unedited versions of chapters here. Wattpad is pretty strict about the, uh, certain subject matter) but if you happen to be a Wattpad user, it would mean the world to me if you would check out “The Star and the Ocean” there too. If you like when you’ve read, a quick vote goes a long way, and I’m always up for hearing your comments and feedback!

And if you’ve entered The Wattys this year, best of luck to you! Leave a link to the story you’ve submitted in the comments and I’ll be sure to check it out!